not knowing what to do with his money, should come to me and say, 'I
know your immense talents, and your anxieties: you want such-and-such
a sum to free yourself; accept it fearlessly: you will pay me; your
pen is worth millions!' That is _all I want_, my dear."[*]

[*] "Balzac, sa Vie et ses Oeuvres, d'apres la Correspondance," by
Mme. L. Surville (nee de Balzac).

Then the "child-man," as his sister calls him, would imagine himself a
member of the Institute; then in the Chamber of Peers, pointing out
and reforming abuses, and governing a highly prosperous country.
Finally, he would end the interview with, "Adieu! I am going home to
see if my banker is waiting for me"; and would depart, quite consoled,
with his usual hearty laugh.

He lived, his sister tells us, to a great extent in a world of his
own, peopled by the imaginary characters in his books, and he would
gravely discuss its news, as others do that of the real world.
Sometimes he was delighted at the grand match he had planned for his
hero; but often affairs did not go so well, and perhaps it would give
him much anxious thought to marry his heroine suitably, as it was
necessary to find her a husband in her own set, and this might be
difficult to arrange. When asked about the past of one of his
creations, he replied gravely that he "had not been acquainted with
Monsieur de Jordy before he came to Nemours," but added that, if his
questioner were anxious to know, he would try to find out. He had many
fancies about names, declaring that those which are invented do not
give life to imaginary beings, whereas those really borne by some one
endow them with vitality. Leon Gozlan says that he was dragged by
Balzac half over Paris in search of a suitable name for the hero of a